But he had no feeling of victory.
14
The Honour of First Blood
IN front of Aquila the main street of Durobrivae ran uphill, deserted in the evening sunlight. The town must have been growing emptier for years, falling gradually into decay, as happened to most of the towns nearest to the Saxon country, until now, before the threat of the Saxon inrush, the few people who were left had streamed away westward. The utter, heart-cold emptiness made Aquila think suddenly of Rutupiae on the night the last of the Eagles flew from Britain. Nothing left alive in Durobrivae but a half-wild yellow cat sitting on a wall; a stillness so complete that the shadow of a wheeling gull sweeping across the cobbles seemed important.
That was in front. Behind Aquila and the knot of champions who stood with him at the town end of the bridge was the ring of axes on heavy timbers, and a hoarse shouting of orders; all the sounds of desperate activity, of labour against time. Time. Aquila sent a swift glance over his shoulder to see how the bridge-felling was going forward. Men were swarming over the long, timber-built bridge, townsmen and Celtic warriors labouring side by side. He saw the blink of axes in the evening light, as they rose and fell, crashing into the bridge timbers; and Catigern, the second of the Young Foxes, standing in the midst of his men, directing operations, the sunset turning his red hair to the colour of fire. It was a wild sunset, beyond the low, wooded hills, touching woods and marshes and mudflats with its own singing gold, and kindling the water to flame. It seemed to Aquila, in that one swift glance before he turned face forward again, somehow fitting that they should fight with the sunset behind them.
The road that led back from the bridge climbed slowly, gold-touched like all the rest, over the brow of the hill, and into the brightness beyond; and Aquila, facing the Saxon lands again, was aware of it behind him, leading back and back, to Deva, to Canovium, to the ancient fortress among the mountains of Arfon. At Deva the three Young Foxes had come in to the hosting. And there, knowing that Hengest would have word of their advance almost as soon as it was begun, and therefore speed was all important, Ambrosius had divided his host in two, and unloosed his swift-moving cavalry and mounted archers under the Young Foxes directly against the barbarians, while he himself, with the slower foot-soldiers, swept south to Glevum and on through his father’s old territories, gathering the troops that waited for him there, on his line of march. That was the last that they had heard of Ambrosius; the last that they could possibly hear for many days. And meanwhile it was for them to hold the river line.
The Saxons, already on the move themselves and fully warned (for news always travelled faster in wild places than a horse could gallop) of British hooves drumming towards them down the Legion’s road from Deva, had come swarming out to finish with the British cavalry before the main host could come up with them, if that might be: at all events to reach the river-line before the British reached it. Durobrivae River, cutting its broad valley through the downs, had only two crossing places between its estuary and the place where the almost impenetrable forest of Anderida closed its own barriers to friend and foe alike. How often Aquila had seen its course drawn out with a charred stick beside the hearth in Dynas Ffaraon. His mind went to the hurried council of war this morning, in the lee of a dripping hazel copse, with the British leaders gathered about the little dark forest man who had foundered a stolen pony to bring them word of the Saxons’ nearness.
‘A day’s march from the river,’ Catigern had said, his face full of reckless laughter. ‘Well, so are we, but horses march quicker than men.’
‘We cannot hold the river at both points, however many hours we may be ahead of them,’ Vortimer said; Vortimer for once without a falcon on his fist, and looking strangely incomplete without it. ‘Look at us—we are a meagre handful!’ And then with a sudden resolve, ‘But if we can be in time to cut the bridge at Durobrivae, it is in my mind that we can hold the upriver ford.’
So they had split forces again, and while the main band, with the little forest man for their guide, had struck off through the scrub for the ford six or seven miles inland, where the ancient track under the North Chalk crossed the river, the smaller squadron had followed Catigern, forcing their weary horses to one last desperate burst of speed, down the road to Durobrivae.
And now, with the Saxons God knew how near, Aquila and his knot of champions stood their guard on the Saxon bank, while their comrades strove desperately against time to cut the bridge behind them.
‘How many men do you want?’ Catigern had demanded when he had volunteered for the task three hours ago. And Aquila had said, ‘Horatius is supposed to have done it with two, but that leaves nothing in reserve. Give me nine—nine who choose to stand with me.’
He had meant men from his own squadron; and indeed the men of his own squadron had been quick enough to come crowding round him, Amgerit and Glevus and grim little Owain and the rest, many times nine. But before he could make his choice from among them, Brychan, of all unlikely people, had come shouldering through the press, crying, ‘Hai, hai! Make way for your betters, my children!’ to stand beside him.
It was odd, that. There had never been any warmth between them from their first meeting on the track up to Dynas Ffaraon, yet now Brychan came as though by right to stand with him at the doomed bridgehead, and he, Aquila, had accepted his coming as something that fitted as a well-worn garment fits. He glanced aside at the young Celt now. Brychan looked very happy. He came of a people to whom fighting was the very flowering of life. Aquila, coming of another people, could not feel that, only a cold, knife-edged sense of waiting, but something leapt between them all the same, binding them for the moment into a brotherhood.
Steps pounded along the quay, and a man came into sight, running as though all the hounds of hell were behind him. He was shouting as he ran; they could not hear what, but there was no need.
‘So, I think they come,’ Aquila said, and drew his sword with quiet deliberation. He caught one more glance over his shoulder. The bridge had a lopsided look, and the whole fabric shuddered and jumped with every stroke of the axes. It could not hold much longer, he judged, but the Saxons would be here before it went.
The scout was right upon them now, and checked, panting. ‘The Saxons are out of the woods.’
‘How many?’ Aquila snapped.
‘Only an advance party, but more than we are, and the rest will be hard behind.’
Aquila nodded. ‘Get back and report to Catigern.’
As the man plunged on, his feet drumming hollow on the crazy bridge timbers, the ten resolute men at the Saxon end of it closed up shoulder to shoulder, their drawn swords ready in their hands, their eyes turned in the direction from which the enemy must come. Behind them the ring of axes took on a redoubled urgency. In the tumble of bright clouds above Durobrivae a lake of clear sky shone blue, a faded harebell colour with the shadow of dusk already upon it; and the gulls swept and circled by with the sunset on their wings. And then, from away south-eastward beyond the silent town, a Saxon war-horn boomed.
Aquila braced himself, tensing like an animal ready to spring. He felt the slight movement run through the men with him, the tautened body and the softly indrawn breath.
‘Brothers,’ he said, almost wonderingly, ‘whoever, in the years to come, strikes the last blow in this fight for all that we hold worth fighting for, to us—to us ten—is the honour of first blood.’
Behind him he heard a panting shout of orders, and the splintering crash and splash as one of the huge timbers went down, and the bridge shuddered under his feet like a live thing in torment. And now there was shouting before them as well as behind, and the yellow cat streaked along the wall with tail bristling, and the stillness was gone from Durobrivae, as the advance guard of Hengest’s host came pouring down the quay, the last fiery light of the sunset jinking on iron helmet and spear-point and ring-mail byrnie. At sight of the bridge, the foremost checked an instant, then they broke forward, yelling as they ran, stormin
g down upon the little knot of champions who waited grimly to receive them.
As the fight joined, Aquila, who had known only that cold, knife-edged sense of waiting in the moment before, suddenly caught fire. He had known more than one skirmish with Scots pirates in the past year, but this was the first time since Wiermund of the White Horse had burned his home that the man at the other end of his sword had been a Saxon; and for Flavia’s sake he hated every Saxon with a sickening hate; a hate that seemed now to spread wings within him and lift him up and fill him with a terrible red delight as each blow went home. Twice a man beside him was struck down, and twice somebody sprang into the empty place, but he was not aware of that, not aware of anything but the faces of the Sea Wolves that thrust upon him, blue-eyed and snarling, behind their bright blades. His own blade was bright, too, and growing red. Aquila killed that day, killed and killed again: and each time his sword struck home, sweeping aside the guard of a Saxon blade or thrusting under the rim of a buckler, his heart cried out within him that this was for his father, that that was for Demetrius, for Kuno, for Gwyna, even for the old hound Margarita. But though it was Flavia who had put that tempest of hate in him, he did not give her name to any of the blows he struck that sunset.
Someone was shouting to him. ‘Fall back! In the Christus’ name fall back! The bridge is going!’ And he woke to the world around him again, and to the fact that he was not there simply to kill Saxons so much as to hold them back while their line of march was cut. He took one long step back, two steps, and the others with him—those that were left of them—their chins tucked down into their shields, their blades biting deep as the Sea Wolves came thrusting after them. The whole bridge felt lax and limber under his feet, swaying above the water as he moved back, and back. Swaying more wildly … He heard a voice above the tumult shouting to his comrades to break off the fight, and never knew that it was his own. There was a whining and rending of timbers, as the others lowered their blades and sprang back, and for one splinter of time that seemed to broaden into an eternity, he stood alone in the face of the Saxon flood. Then he had a sudden sense of a gulf, an immensity of nothingness opening behind him; the hills and river and ragged, darkening sky seemed to heel over in a vast half-circle, and with a shout of triumph he sprang back and down.
A falling beam caught him on the temple just over the old scar, sending jagged splinters of light through his head. He was aware of a great falling and crashing down, a rending uproar, and the shock of cold water that engulfed him and closed over his head. Then there was darkness—no, never true darkness; a kind of rolling cloud of confusion that never quite shut out the world.
It lifted at last, and he realized dimly that he was lying on his side on grass, and had just vomited up what felt like about half the river. The river must be tidal at Durobrivae, he thought, for the taste of it was still salt in his mouth. He rolled farther on to his face and propped himself up a little on his hands, remembering after a while to open his eyes. He found himself staring down at his own hands in a pool of sharp golden light, one spread-fingered on the rough turf of the river bank, one still cramped about the hilt of his sword, which he must have clung to throughout. In the almost acid radiance every grass-blade stood out distinct and glowing, and a tiny yellow-banded snail-shell was a thing to marvel at, living a life of its own and casting a shadow that was as complete and perfect as itself.
‘Sa, that is better,’ said Brychan’s voice above him; and he made a great effort and got a leg under him, and Brychan helped him to his knees. The world swam unpleasantly in the light of a torch that someone was holding above him; there was a numbed aching behind his forehead, and he hoped vaguely that he wasn’t going to be sick again. But after a few moments the world began to steady. It was dusk now, dusk full of movement. He saw other torches, and men moving about him, and horses. A group of men already mounted went past him in the crowding shadows, and he had a confused impression of the black, stark lines of the bridge running out into the cold paleness of the water, jagged and driven askew, and ending in a skeleton tumble of beams, and then nothing. A vague impression also of flames springing up on the farther bank. The barbarians had fired Durobrivae.
‘How many of us got—back?’ he demanded thickly, with an arm on Brychan’s shoulder to steady himself. Brychan was dripping with river water, too, and something in Aquila registered the fact that it was probably Brychan who had hauled him out of Durobrivae River.
‘Five. You and I, Struan and Amgerit and Owain. But Amgerit is about done for. They’ve taken him up to the fisher huts with the rest of the wounded. Anyway, we accounted for a fine lot of Saxons, what with the fight and those that were swept away when the bridge went.’
Aquila said after a moment, ‘Five—six out of ten. Well, I suppose that is not a heavy price for the bridge.’ He realized for the first time that somebody else had checked beside them. He looked up and saw that it was Catigern himself; and with a hand still on Brychan’s shoulder, he lurched unsteadily to his feet. ‘First blood to us!’
Catigern nodded. ‘First blood to us! That was a most noble fight, my friend … Can you ride yet?’
‘Yes,’ Aquila said.
‘So, ride then. We head for the ford now,’ and he was gone, swinging his cloak behind him.
Someone brought him a dry cloak to fling round him over his dripping tunic, and someone brought Inganiad. She whinnied, pleased and calling to him, when she caught his smell. He groaned as he hauled himself into the saddle. There had been a few hours’ rest for the horses, none for the men.
He knew, when he came to think back over it later, that they pushed on up-river through the short spring night and reached the ford and the British camp before dawn; that there were a few hours’ rest, and then more fighting, as the Saxons, baulked of Durobrivae Bridge, swept inland to attack the ford: the first full battle of the long struggle for Britain, and at the day’s end the first British victory; to be remembered long after the cutting of Durobrivae Bridge was forgotten. But to Aquila it was all no more than a dream; something seen dimly through the aching numbness in his head, moving like a painted curtain with the wind behind it.
It was not until the fighting was over and sunset came again that reality broke in on him once more, and he found that he was in a charcoal-burner’s bothy, twisting a piece of filthy rag round a deep gash in his forearm, and looking down at Catigern’s body lying where it had been carried aside from the battle in the full flood of wild sunset light that streamed through the open doorway.
Vortimer and Pascent were there; and Vortimer turned away to give some order to the men who crowded about them, beating his clenched fists together as he did so. ‘If I had a thousand men, I’d follow them up; as it is there’s nothing that we can do but guard the river line until Ambrosius comes up. Post scouts across the river to bring me word if they show any signs of trying again farther up. Calgalus, send men up to the village; it is going to be a wild night and we must get the wounded into shelter.’
But Pascent, the youngest, kneeling beside his brother’s body, only went on staring blindly down at it. ‘They say that Horsa is dead too. Somebody said that he was lying by the ford with a whole company of Hengest’s household warriors about him,’ he said. And then, through shut teeth, ‘I hope his death is a stone in Hengest’s belly tonight!’
They held the river line until nine days later Ambrosius and the rest of the host came out of the woods behind them; lean and mired, footsore and red-eyed with forced marching. Longbow-men from the mountains, men wearing old Roman harness and carrying the short sword and the pilum; old soldiers and the sons of old soldiers from Venta and Aquae Sulis and Sorviodunum and a hundred villas and villages and little towns between.
And then at last they swept forward after the Saxon kind.
When winter came, putting an end to fighting for the next few months, the Saxons were back to the territory from which they had swarmed out in the spring; and settling the better part of his host in winter camps
at Durobrivae and Noviomagus, Ambrosius marched the rest back to Venta Belgarum, that had been Constantine’s old capital and would now be his.
He rode in through the streets of Venta in a sleet storm, with a bitter wind blowing; and all the city seemed cold and grey and falling derelict. Aquila, riding through the streets that he had known when he was a boy, saw how far the grass had encroached into the roadways in five years. He saw faces that he knew among the crowds, though none of them knew him, and it seemed to him that on them also the grass had encroached. But there was warmth in Venta that day, for besides the Magistrates and chief citizens who had met them at the city gate, there were many to cry a welcome to Ambrosius; a child threw a branch of glowing winter berries under his horse’s hooves, and an old man called out to him, ‘I knew your father, sir! I served under him in the old days!’ and was rewarded by the swift smile even more than by the coin which the slight, dark man on the black stallion tossed down to him.
‘You are at home among your own people here, as surely as ever you were at Dynas Ffaraon,’ Aquila said to him later that night, when the Magistrates and the chief citizens had departed, and a few of the Companions stood together round the fire in a small side chamber of the old Governor’s Palace.
Ambrosius turned his cold hands before the fire, spreading them so that the light shone through between his fingers. ‘At home.’ He looked up to the high, dark window; and Aquila knew that through the darkness of the sleet-spattered glass in which the reflections of the firelight danced, he was seeing the remote crests of the Arfon skyline, the snow corries of Yr Widdfa; smelling the sweet, cold air of the mountains, and saying his farewells. ‘Yes, at home, and among my own people. I even saw certain faces that I knew among the crowds today—and they remembered me for my father’s and my grandfather’s sakes. One day they may remember me for my own.’